Survey Data
Reg No
12311007
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Goresbridge Constabulary Barrack
Original Use
RIC barracks
In Use As
Garda station/constabulary barracks
Date
1765 - 1785
Coordinates
268138, 153632
Date Recorded
17/05/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached four-bay three-storey Royal Irish Constabulary barracks, c.1775, possibly originally two separate semi-detached two-bay three-storey houses. Converted to use as Garda Síochána Station, post-1922. Renovated and subdivided, c.1975, to accommodate private residential use to right. Part refenestrated. Pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves having iron brackets. Painted fine roughcast walls. Square-headed window openings (one inserted to first floor to right, c.1975) with cut-granite sills (concrete sill to additional opening), and six-over-six timber sash windows (replacement uPVC casement window to right). Series of three round-headed door openings with two cut-stone steps, cut-granite pilaster surrounds having moulded archivolts with keystones, and replacement glazed timber doors, c.1975, having overlights. Road fronted with concrete footpath to front.
Appraisal
An elegantly-composed substantial building forming an imposing centrepiece in the streetscape of Barrack Street: diminishing slightly in scale on each floor pleasing Classically-derived proportions identify the elegant architectural design value of the composition while the feature of grouped doorcases displaying high quality stone masonry recalls a similar contemporary (c.1775) treatment in Lower Main Street, Graiguenamanagh (12312014/KK-29-18-14). Despite renovation works in the late twentieth century that have led to the interruption of some of the balanced appearance of the design substantial quantities of the original fabric survive in place, thereby maintaining much of the character of the site. The house remains of particular importance in the locality as one of the earliest-surviving civic institutions in Goresbridge having been established as a centre for the Royal Irish Constabulary in response to the civil unrest later culminating in the Battle of Goresbridge in June, 1798.